A Bulletin of Socialist Economic Analysis published by Ken Livingstone
Articles may be freely republished from Socialist Economic Bulletin provided the source is acknowledged

Saturday, 14 July 2012

What the world economy should learn from China

By John Ross

I have a new article at the Guardian's Comment is Free analysing China's economic success both during the international financial crisis and in general since since 1978. It analyses the theoretical bases of China's economic policies in terms of both Chinese and Keynesian economic theory. The article starts:

'Few things better illustrate the difference between the state of China's economy and that of the rest of the world than the fact that its newly announced GDP growth figures of 7.6% were analysed as a "slowdown". In any other major economy this would have been considered blistering growth threatening overheating. Instead, it is clear China has room for further stimulus measures in the second half of the year.

'Indeed, as the international financial crisis has unfolded, there have been few starker contrasts than those between China, the US and the EU. Europe has combined loose monetary policy with little or no stimulus to the productive economy – the "austerity" approach. The result has been that the EU's economy shrank by 2% over four years – the UK's shrank by 4.4%. The US has combined loose monetary policy with a consumer stimulus delivered via the budget deficit. The result? The US economy has grown by 1.2% in four years. India, which followed the US model of a budget deficit delivering a consumer stimulus, saw its growth decline from 9.4% in the first quarter of 2010 to 5.3% in the first quarter of 2012.

'Meanwhile China, which combined expansionary monetary policy with an investment-led stimulus, has experienced more than 9% annual average growth throughout the four years of the financial crisis.'